THE MATERIAL BEARING 



OF THE 



TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN IN 1862 



UPON THE 



DES'nNIES OP OUR CIYIL FAR. 



W. II. Moore, printtr, 511 Jileventh street, Washington, D. C. 




Glass _El 



"r I ^ 



Book 



-e^^^ 



THE TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 

DECISIVE OF THE WAR. 



AUTHOR OF THE PLAN. 

All writers upon our civil war concede that the movement 
which transferred the national armies from Cairo and the north- 
ern part of Kentucky to their new base in northern Mississippi 
and Alabama on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, was the 
decisive campaign of the war. 

It made the destruction of the " Southern Confederacy " inevi- 
table. It sapped it to its foundation, and thenceforth, it decayed, 
grew ripe for destruction and smouldered to its fall. 

But, while there has been universal assent as to the vital impor- 
tance of the Tennessee campaign, it was not until the report of the 
Military Committee of the United States Senate, nine years after, 
that it became known to whom the merit of the plan belonged. 
This report establishes the fact, that on the 30th of November, 
1861, Miss Carroll, of Maryland, presented to the War Department 
at Washington, an elaborate plan for this campaign, which was 
adopted by the administration, and there can be no doubt that 
future critical researches, by bringing more clearly to light the 
dangers which then hazarded the Union, will not only confirm this 
judgment, but will lift it to a place which belongs only to the most 
extraordinary strategic movements in ancient or modern warfare, 
and invest the author with an historic interest not heretofore con- 
ceived. 






MILITARY SITUATION. 

It is impossible to comprehend the tremendous importance of 
this plan without a knowledge of the military situation. 

In the autumn of '61, the Confederate States had acquired an 
organization and consistency, strong enough to^put in the field and 
maintain a military power too formidable to be overthrown by 
any power the National Government could bring against it, on any 
of the lines of operation known to the administration. 

If this rebel power could gain time to prepare for replenishing 
its warlike material by the creation of machine power, it was 
numerous enough and rick enough in intellectual and material 
resources to resist indefinitely, if not able to destroy the Union 
altogether. No blockade could so curtail its supplies of warlike 
material but what was rapidly beiug supplemented by the energies 
of the people. 

Could the National armies, however, penetrate the central region 
so as to break up their internal lines of connection and, at the 
same time, disorganize their industrial system, the Confederacy 
would be geographically cut in two, and their ability to create 
resources for large armies forever destroyed. 

GENERAL SCOTT'S VIEW, &c. 

The popular opinion that the North, by its supjjosed superiority 
in numbers, wealth and intelligence, could i-eadily weaken and 
reduce the South, yielded to sounder views. General Scott per- 
ceived, (and he was the greatest military authority at the time,) 
that 12,000,000 of people in a central position, with interior lines 
of communication, was on military principles, an over-match for 
18,000,000, and he retired to West Point for the reason, perhaps, 
that he despaired of being able to conquer the rebellion. 

General Sherman gave up the command at Louisville because 
he did not perceive how he could succeed witli their resources, and 



as he expressed it, saw no light until the battle of Donelson. 
The Adjutant General reported the inability to move in Missouri. 
The necessity of a Committee on the conduct of the war, 
proved the anxiety and doubt of success that was felt, and their 
report shows that the main reliance was on the Army of the Poto- 
mac. 

NO MILITARY PLAN KNOWN TO THE GOVERNMENT COULD 
HAVE SAVED THE CNION. 

Nothing is more certain than that the rebel power was able to 
resist all the 2)ower of the Union, and keep her armies from strik- 
ing their resources and interior lines of communication upon any of 
the plans or lines of operation on which the Union armies were 
operating. Geographically considered, there was but one line 
which the National armies could take and maintain, and that was 
unthought of, unhnown, and would not have been found out in all 
human probability, in time to have prevented a collapse or warded 
off recognition and intervention, but for Miss Carroll. 

The failure to reduce Vicksburg from the water, after a tremen- 
dous sacrifice of life and treasure, and the time it took to take 
Richmond, furnish irrefragable proof of the inability of the Union 
to subdue the rebellion on the plan of our ablest Generals. And 
when it is urged that the National Generals would have found and 
adopted the Tennessee, we answer so they would in the course of 
time, had that time been vouchsafed to them, but there was no 
time for experiments — ;no time for educating our Generals — that 
line of operation Avhich would place the National armies in com- 
mand of a decisive point, had to be gained in a few months — that 
is before the opening of the spring of '62, or the Union must contend 
not only against the rebel poiver, but against England and France, 
and contend too, with an exhausted, bankrupt treasury, arid a divided 
North. England and France had resolved that duty to their suf- 
fering operatives required the raising of the blockade, for the sup- 



ply of cotton, and nothing prevented that intervention but the pro- 
gress of the National armies up the Tennessee. 

THE TENNESSEE RIVER. 

It is established beyond controversy that it was by the adop- 
tion of this river as the line of operations, that the National armies 
reached a central position in the Confederacy, destroyed or hrohe 
their connecting lines and overthrew the rebel poiver hj depriving him 
of his resources, and that this point could not have been gained, 
and these resources taken from him on any one of the lines on 
which our armies were operating, for had it been possible in a mili- 
tary sense to gain these decisive points at all, on those lines, 
they could by no possibility have done so in time to have pre- 
vented the loss of the Union. 

From the rebel strength and position, no array the National 
Government could muster would have conquered the rebellion on 
any plan of military operations conceived by the Government. 
For operating on any safe base on any known line, the National 
armies were numerically not strong enough to reach the vitals — the 
decisive point. 

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC NOT HALF WAY. 

The Army of the Potomac was three years and upwards reach- 
ing Richmond, and was then not half the distance to a decisive 
point, and had Lee been able to recruit his army, which was made 
impossible by the Tennessee campaign that opened the gates for 
the march of Sherman, Lee would have been the superior at Appo- 
matox Court House. 

VICKSBURG AND MOBILE EASILY REDUCED IN 1862. 

The Mississippi expedition was baffled at Vicksburg long enough 
to show that it would have taken years in time to have reduced all 
the fortifications on that stream, operating on its Waters. 



5 

The army of Buel had for its objective point Kuoxville, in East 
Tennessee, and as stated by General McClellan, was preliminary 
in aid of his move on Richmond. The several naval expeditions 
had for their object the enforcement of the blockade and inciden- 
tally to cripple the enemy in his coast line and railroad supplies. 
Admiral Farragut's expedition designed the capture of New Or- 
leans, and if possible to open the Mississippi as high as he might 
be able. 

The record evidence furnished by Miss Carroll's paper on the 
reduction of Vicksburg, is proof conclusive that in 1862 she was in 
advance of the ablest military strategists, she pointed out the way 
of success, and when they stopped short at Corinth and attempted 
to take Vicksburg on the water, she showed the administration 
that Vicksburg would necessarily fall by the occupation of Jack- 
son as certainly as did Memphis by the occupation of Cornith, and 
the proper and only plan to open the Mississippi was to take its 
strongholds in the rear. It is perfectly demonstrated that twelve 
months was wasted away xoith an enormous drain upon the re- 
sources of the country in men and material by the effort to take 
Vicksburg from the river, and that both Vickburg and Mobile 
could have been reduced in 1862, and Corinth, Meredian and 
Mobile, made to play the part of Chattanooga, Atlanta and Sa- 
vannah in 1864 and 1865. 

STRENGTH OF THE REBELLION. 

At the time Miss Carroll proposed to the Government to aban- 
don the Mississippi expedition the Avar had been waged over six 
months, but with the exception of West Virginia, the battle had 
been steadily against the Union. 

The rebels who were thoroughly prepared at the onset had ex- 
tended their battle lines to the Potomac, effectually closing its 
navigation ; thence westward through the southern part of Ken- 
tucky to Columbus, which they had strongly fortified, sealing the 



6 

navigation of the Mississippi, and thence westward to the Rio 
Grande. 

They were complete masters of all the territory southward to 
the Gulf. They had formally admitted Kentucky and Missouri 
into their Confederacy, and resolved to move their seat of govern- 
ment to Nashville, and were preparing to extend their battle lines 
to the northern limits of those States, and the Adjutant General 
after a tour of inspection reported that the force was not then suffi- 
cient to hold Kentucky and Missouri to the Union. Thus, while 
the two armies were confronting each other in sight of Washington 
events were rapidly pressing in the southwest, which if unchecked, 
would change the destiny of ages. The Confederacy needed but 
to maintain its strongholds a few months longer to secure admis- 
sion into the family of nations. It was then plain to the adminis- 
tration that England and France were prepared and anxious to 
make common cause with the South, and European war Avith the 
United States was imminent. The Government was under the 
absolute necessity therefore, of infiicting some decisive blow tipon the 
rebellion in the next few months, not only to ivard off foreign inter- 
vention and invasion, but to smother the spirit of secession in the 
northwest and prevent financial bankruptcy, which of itself must 
destroy the nation, 

GRAND ARMY OF THE POTOMAC A MISTAKE. 

It became a question then of painful doubt whether success 
could be obtained upon any plan upon which our armies were op- 
erating. The Army of the Potomac and the Army of the West 
were the two grand expeditions on which the administration relied. 
The first had for its objective point, the rebel capital, and the de- 
struction of the rebel army of the east; and the combined military 
and naval expedition of the Avest had for its objective point the 
opening of the Mississippi, the seizure of the important termini 
of the railroads in the south, and the destruction of their resources 



7 
in the west. All other expeditions were designed as auxiliary to 
these great movements. This was the plan for the military de- 
struction of the rebel power, and upon this plan it is demonstrable 
that no satisfactory result could have been secured in time to have 
prevented the loss of the Union. The Army of the Potomac, 
after having been put upon a scale of rare magnificence, as com- 
plete as possible consistent with mobility, and after several changes 
of the ablest commanders, took three years and a half to reach 
EichmOnd and destroy Lee's army — and it never could have been 
made strong enough to have captured Eichmond but for the deci- 
sive campaign of the Army of the West upon the line of the Ten- 
nessee river. Strategically, an invasion always leads to deep lines 
of operations, which are always dangerous in a hostile country on 
account of the difficulty of maintaining communication with its 
base. Every mile the National armies advanced, every victory 
they gained, carried them farther from their base, and required an 
increase of force for the protection of their communications ; — 
while every retreat of the enemy brought him nearer his resources, 
and it is mathematically certain that he would soon have reached 
the point on that line, where he would have been the superior 
power. 

THE CAPTURE OF RICHMOND POSSESSING NO MATERIAL 
INFLUENCE, 

But even had chance thrown Eichmond into the hands of 
our army at an earlier day it could not have materially influ- 
enced the war. Capitals in foreign wars, however important as 
seats of political power, can have very little strategic value in an 
insurgent and unrecognized power, and from the geographical po- 
sition of Eichmond, it had none at all, for they had resolved and 
were prepared to move it any day. The rebels might have sur- 
rendered Eichmond, and all the Atlantic States to Florida, and 
yet have maintained their independence. Could they have re- 



tained their power over the Mississippi valley a few mouths longer, 
they would have so connected themselves with France through 
Texas, and with England through the States of the Northwest, as 
not only to have made good their independence, but to have 
dwarfed the United States to the area of the old thirteen, and 
taken the lead as the controlling political power on this continent. 
With the Mississippi river in their possession to the mouth of the 
Ohio, the presence of the English and French fleets at New Or- 
leans would have brought about this result. 

SACRIFICE OF LIFE AND YEARS OF TRIAL IN TAKING 
RICHMOND. 

The Army of the Potomac, therefore, though seeming to the 
country of such signal moment, occupied an attitude of compara- 
tive insignificance, Avhen contrasted with the Arm}^ of the South- 
west, and the tremendous sacrifice of life and years of trial in tak- 
ing Richmond was a military mistake. A defensive force was the 
true antagonism, and an invading column in the valley, by using 
the Tennessee river first, and then the reduction of Mobile would 
have brought our armies on the navigable waters of the Alabama 
river, which would have given them that river as a base at the 
South ; and with the Tennessee river as the northern base, the ar- 
mies of the east and the armies of the west would have been in 
sup2)orting distance of each other. By resting on the mountains 
the left and holding their right, they could have pushed the enemy 
back east of Atlanta, compressing him in the slip between it and 
the mountains, in '62, and with much greater ease than three years 
after in 1865. 

PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND THE MISSISSIPPI EXPEDITION. 

The vital necessity of regaining the Mississippi and striking 
a blow upon the resources in its great valley, was fully appre- 
ciated by President Lincoln, who rightly perceived at the com- 



9 

mencement of hostilities, that decisive i-esults must be obtained 
in the west ; and the combined military and naval expedition to go 
down the Mississippi was regarded by him as the most important 
of the war, and he reserved to himself its special direction as Com- 
mander-in-Chief. This campaign was designed by the aid of the 
expedition from the Gulf to clear the Mississippi to its mouth, and 
as we have said, to seize and hold the termini of the important 
railroads south. Could this expedition succeed ? Could it open 
the Mississippi to its mouth ? These were momentous questions, 
while the very delay in military movements was weakening the 
confidence of the country, as well as confirming foreign powers in 
their behalf, that the government had neither the strength nor 
ability to conquer the rebellion. But had the exjoedition suc- 
ceeded in opening the • Mississippi, could they from any point on 
that river have delivered a decisive blow upon the Confederate 
power? 

After a reconnoisance on Columbus at the engagement of Bel- 
mont, Commodore Foote reported that it could not be reduced 
without a very large co-operating land force in its rear. Below 
Columbus, there were many strongly fortified positions, where, 
from the nature of the ground, no efficient land force could co- 
operate. 

These considerations, fully appreciated by the enemy, made it 
absolutely certain, that if reliance was upon this expedition, the 
country was gone. 

BUT ONE WAY TO THE CENTER. 

The United States were not so superior in numbers and re- 
sources to the South, as to have destroyed the rebel armies of the 
East or opened the Mississippi, so long as the rebels could main- 
tain their interior lines complete. No display of military genius 
could have extorted from Lee his sword, so long as his resources 
were unwasted. No valor on the part of our navies and armies 



10 

could have taken the fortifications on the Mississippi, so long as 
the rebels could keep open their lines of communication. If the Na- 
tional Government is to maintain itself against the rebellion, it 
must reach their center and deliver a blow tipon their resources. 
There was but one avenue by which our armies could reach this 
decisive point and that was the Tennessee river. By taking that 
river, the combined military and naval expedition could secure a 
base in Mississippi and Alabama from which the fatal blow could 
be delivered. That river was navigable for gunboats to the foot of 
the muscle shoals in Alabama, within hearing of the locomotives 
of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, the only complete bond of 
communication between the rebel armies of the East, and the rebel 
armies of the Mississippi valley. 

MISS CARROLL SOLVES THE DIFFICULT PROBLEM. 

These tremendous facts in the supreme moments of our National 
existence were unhnoivn or overloohed by all the military command- 
ers of the country. From the evidence it is clear that to Miss Car- 
roll belongs the exclusive merit of having influenced the administra- 
tion to transfer the Army of the West from Cairo on the north line 
of the Kentucky to a new base in Mississippi and Alabama on the 
Tennessee river in February, 1862, in time to save the country from 
the breaking down of its finances, to stop the discontent in the noriJv- 
west, and prevent the intervention of England and France by raising 
the blockade. She had the genius to grasp the situation and per- 
ceive that the fall of Richmond could not destroy the rebellion, 
and the Mississippi river could not be opened on its waters ; that 
the Government must seize a strategic position Avithiu the cotton 
States, and if a fatal blow could be inflicted, it must fall there. 
To her, therefore, must be given the credit of having solved the 
problem for the military destruction of the " Southern Con- 
federacy." 



11 

On the 12th of November, 1861, she wrote from St. Louis to 
the Hon. Edward Bates at Washington, the member of the 
Cabinet who first suggested the gunboats for the Mississippi expe- 
dition, that from the information she had derived, she believed 
that expedition ivould fail, and urged him to try and have it di- 
rected up the Tennessee river, as the true line of attack, and en- 
closed a similar letter to Hon. Thomas A. Scott, Assistant Secre- 
tary of War, and on the 30th of November laid before the War 
Department the following paper : 

The civil and military authorities seem to be laboring under a great mis- 
take in regard to the true key of the war in the Southwest. It is not the 
Mississippi, but the Tennessee River. Now all the military preparations 
made in the west indicate that the Mississippi River is the point to which the 
authorities are directing their attention. On that river man- battles must 
be fought and heavy risks incurred, before any impression can be made on 
the enemy, all of which could be avoided by using the Tennessee River. 
This river is navigable for medium-class boats to the foot of the Muscle Shoals 
in Alabama, and is opened to navigation all the year, while the distance is 
but two hundred and fifty miles by the river from Paducah, on the Ohio. 
The Tennessee offers many advantages over the Mississippi. We should 
avoid the almost impregnable batteries of the enemy, which cannot be taken 
without great danger and great risk of life to our forces, from the fact that 
our boats, if crippled, would fall a prey to the enemy by being swept by the 
current to him, and away from the relief of our friends. But even should we 
succeed, still we will only have begun the war, for we shall then have to 
fi;jrht to the country from whence the enemy derives his supplies. 

Now, an advance up the Tennessee River would avoid this dangar; for, if 
our boats were crippled, they would drop back with the c-urrent and escape 
capture. 

But a still greater advantage would be its tendency to cut the enemy^s lines 
in two, by reaching the Memphis and Charleston railroad, threte-tening Mem- 
phis, which lies one hundred miles due west, and no defensible point between ; 
also Nashville, only ninety miles northeast, and Florence and Tuscumbia in 
North Alabama, forty miles east. A movement in this direction would do 
more to relieve our friends in Kentucky, and inspire the loyal hearts in East 
Tennessee, than the possession of the whole of the Mississippi River. If well 
executed, it would cause the evacuation of all those formidable fortifications 
on which the rebels ground their hopes for success ; and, in the event of our 
fleet attacking Mobile, the presence of our troops in the northern part of Ala- 
bama would be material aid to the fleet. 

Again, the aid our forces would receive from the loyal men in Tennessee 



u 

would enable them soon to crush the last traitor in that region, and the sep- 
aration of ike two extremes "would do more than one hundred battles for the 
Union cause. 

The Tennessee riA'er is crossed by the Memphis and Louisville railroad and 
the Memphis and Nashville railroad. At Hamburg the river makes the big 
bend on the east, touching the northeast corner of Mississippi, entering the 
northwest corner of Alabama, forming an arc to the south, entering the State 
of Tennessee at the northeast corner of Alabama, and if it does not touch 
the northwest corner of Georgia, comes very near it. It is but eight miles 
from Hamburg to the Memphis and Charleston railroad, which goes through 
Tuscumbia, only two miles from the river, which it crosses at Decatur, thirty 
miles above, intersecting with the Nashville and Chattanooga road at Ste- 
phenson. The Tennessee river has never less than three feet to Hamburg on 
the "shoalest"' bar, and, during the fall, winter and spring months, there is 
always water for the largest boats that are used on the Mississippi river It 
follows from the above facts, that in making the Mississippi the key to the 
war in the West, or rather in overlooking the Tennessee river, the subject is 
not understood by the superiors in command. 

That this plan as suggested, was adopted, we submit the follow- 
ing letter from Hon. Thomas A. Scott, then Assistant Secretary of 

War : 

i, 
Hon. Jacob M. Howard, United States Seriate : 

On or about the 30th of November, 18G1, Miss Carroll, as stated in her 
memorial, called on me as Assistant Secretary of War, and suggested the 
propriety of abandoning the expedition which was then preparing to descend 
the Mississippi river, and to adopt instead the Tennessee river, and handed 
to me the plan of campaign, as appended to her memorial, which plan I sub- 
mitted to the Secretary of War, and its general ideas were adopted. Ou my 
return from the Southwest, in 1862, 1 informed Miss Carroll, as she states in 
her memorial, that through the adoption of this plan the country had been 
saved millions, and that it entitled htr to the kind consideration of Congress. 

THOS. A. SCOTT. 

SECRETARY CAMERON AND COL. SCOTT. 

Secretary Cameron and Col. Scott, both men of uncommon 
administrative capacities, saw at once its vital power. They com- 
prehended, better perhaps, than any militaiy man at that day, the 
value of the railroad system of the South, and its uses in war. 
Col. Scott said it was the first clear solution of the difficult prob- 
lem. He saw that the seizure of the Memphis and Charleston rail- 



13 
road would separate the Confederacy and place our armies in the 
very heart of the rebellion. He saw, too, what no militanj man 
had perceived at that period, that the shortest road to the rebel 
armies of the East as well as to their impregnable fortifications on the 
Mississippi river, was upon the line of the Tennessee river, and with- 
out a word, without an allusion to himself or the author, he 
brought about that change which inflicted the mortal wound upon 
the Confederate power. When the enemy's centre was pierced at 
Henry the decisive point was gained. Columbus, Bowling Green 
and Donelson at once became untenable. 

THE BATTLE OF DONELSON. 

A. S. Johnson withdrew his forces from Bowling Green and 
made a stand at Donelson only with a hope of gaining time for con- 
centrating his army to cover the Memphis and Charleston rail- 
road. 

The expedition against Donelson was in aid of Buel's march on 
Knoxville, and no part of the grand campaign to Corinth, and 
while the achievement served to satisfy the popular craving for 
victory at the time, it had, no influence beside, and instead of 
advancing it really retarded that campaign and came well nigh 
proving fatal to the Union at Pittsburg Lauding. 

THE GRAND RESULTS TO THE UNION AND SLAVERY. 

Beauregard, then in command, called frightfully for reinforce- 
ments from Pemberton's army; " if defeated," said he, "we lose 
the Mississippi valley and probably our cause, whereas we could 
afford to lose Charleston and Savannah for the purpose of defeat- 
ing Buel's army which would not only insure us the valley of the 
Mississippi, but our independence." It was true, for the seizure of 
their railroafl connections caused the evacuatio7i of all their strong 
fortifications on the Mississippi on which they relied for indepen- 



14 

dence, and opened that river from Cairo to Vicksburg, averted Euro- 
pean war with the United States, revived the National credit, and 
forced the enemy back to the Vicksburg and Meridian railroad, and 
brought the National armies in contact with the slave population of 
the cotton States, which turned over four millions of their people, 
until then a source of their strength, against them and to the sup- 
port of the Union, making it absolutely impossible longer to maintain 
slavery ! 

NOVEL AND STARTLING FACTS. 

The army as well as the country were confronted by novel and 
startling facts — the moral and material effect of their presence in 
sight of a million of slaves was an almighty fact. Why the National 
armies halted and extended their lines eastward and westward, 
and moved down from Memphis to Vicksburg, instead of fol- 
lowing up their pursuit and delivering the finishing blow, does not 
appear. It is not improbable, however, that the first success, tak- 
ing a position in Alabama and Mississij)pi on the Memphis and 
Charleston railroad, so satisfied the country and the world that 
the rebellion ivas in the power of the National armies ; that the mind 
became dissipated on indefinite routes and numerous objects occu- 
pied the attention of the Government. 

READY TO SURRENDER. 

The victory at Pittsburg Landing and the march on Corinth, 

hurled the rebel battle line to the Vicksburg and Meridian 

railroad, and had our army moved down on luka and Vicksburg 

road at once, Vicksburg would have as assuredly surrendered to 

our fleet as did Memphis on the fall of Corinth, and the enemy 

been thrown back on the Alabama river ; and had Farragut gone 

to Mobile in May, after the fall of New Orleans, the rebel left 

> 
would have been pushed east of Chattanooga and Atlanta. 



15 



REDUCTION OF VICKSBURG. 

The author of the plan observiug this departure addressed the 
War Department through Hon. John Tucker, Assistant Secretary 
of War, enclosing a map which she had prepared of the profile of 
the river at that place. In this paper, Miss Carroll pointed out 
the difficulties of reducing Vicksburg from the river, and said : 

" It is impossible to take Vicksburg in front without too great a loss of 
life and material, for the reason that the river is only about half a mile wide 
and our forces would be in point-blank range of their guns, not only from 
their water batteries which line the shore, but from the batteries that crown 
the bills, while the enemy would be protected by their elevation from the 
range of our fire." 

"By examining the map enclosed, you will at once perceive why a place 
of so little apparent strength has been able to resist the combined fleets of 
the upper and lower Mississippi." 

" The most economical plan for the reduction of Vicksburg, wo?o, is to push 
a column from Memphis or Corinth down the Mississippi Central railroad to 
Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi. The occupation of Jackson 
and the command of the railroad to New Orleans would compel the immedi- 
ate evacuation of Vicksburg, as well as the retreat of the entire rebel army 
East of that line, and by another movement of our army from Jackson, Miss- 
issippi, or from Corinth to Meridian in the State of Mississippi, on the Mo- 
bile railroad, especially if aided by a movement of our gun-boats on Mobile, 
the Confederate forces with all the disloyal men and their slaves would be 
compelled to fly East of the Tombigbee river. Of course I would have the 
gun-boats with a small force at Vicksburg, as auxiliary to this movement. 
With regard to the canal, Vicksburg can be rendered useless to the Confed- 
erate army upon the very first rise of the river, but I do not advise this 
because Vicksburg belongs to the United States, and we desire to hold and 
fortify it — for the Mississippi river at Vicksburg and the Vicksburg nnd Jack- 
son railroad will become necessary as a base for our future operations. Vicks- 
burg might have been reduced eight mouths ago as I then advised, after the 
fall of Henry, and with much more ease than it can be done to-day." 

Perhaps there never was a plan of campaign so elaborate in de- 
tail, which was so fully justified in its results, as that of the Ten- 
nessee. And as if to furnish its strategic wisdom, the defeat of 
our ar ms at Vicksburg demonstrated the impossibility of having 
succeeded in time to save the Union, upon the plan of our military 
commanders. 



16 



THE VALUE OF THE CAMPAIGN. 



The value of this campaign is incomputable. It can only be 
measured by the value of the Union. It saved the useless sacri- 
fice of hundreds of thousands of lives. It was worth to the coun- 
try an army of a million of men. The war was then costing from 
two to three millions per day; how many days it was shortened by 
the abandonment of the expedition down the Mississippi, may 
be conjectured by the time that was wasted in attempting to take 
Vicksburg on the river. It is not too much to say, three thou- 
sand millions was saved the taxpayers of the nation. 

WAR, LIBERTY AND FINANCE. 

War, if long continued, must ever be detrimental to liberty, by 
the weight of debt, accumulation of powers in the Government 
and the military habits it superinduces. These considerations be- 
gan to weigh in the autumn of '61, as the difficulties in waging the 
war were more clearly developed; it had then cost U2:)wards of two 
hundred millions over all receipts of the Government, and if pro- 
tracted another year, this excess, it was estimated would be over 
three hundred and eighty millions of dollars; butto put the armies 
upon a proper footing to conquer the rebellion, it was evident they 
must be enlarged On a much more costly scale. The loan of two 
hundred and fifty millions, had already absorbed all the capital 
that could be invested in Government securities at home. None 
could be borrowed abroad, for foreign capitalists believed the war 
could not reunite the Union, and without some palpable and un- 
questioned military advantage, the Government had no alternative 
but to resort to forced loans and taxation, which would have been 
equivalent to the confiscation of the property of the peojile. 



n 



VISIBLE AND GROWING DISCONTENT, 

In this posture of affairs, the enthusiasm which enkindled on the 
fall of Sumter was visibly giving place to discontent, doubt, and 
even despair of the Union. President Lincoln began to inquire if 
the country would sustain him in the measures essential to end the 
rebellion. He knew that without positive military success it could 
not. The northwest was growing restive under a struggle, which 
seemed to be fruitless, in good results, while it closed against them 
their commerical outlets, and reduced them to a condition of 
forced dependence upon a rival. They were connected too with 
the South, not only by the bond of the Mississippi river, but by an 
identity of political theories and ideas, and could the Confederate 
armies have succeeded in extending their battle lines to the upper 
Mississippi and Ohio rivers, it would have been a signal for as 
many rebel recruits from Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, as from Mis- 
souri and Kentucky, when the party of peace would have come to 
the front and demanded concessions from the National Govern- 
ment, or struck for independence. 

FOREIGN POWERS ANXIOUS TO MAKE COMMON CAUSE 
WITH THE SOUTH. 

England and France, at the inception of the rebellion, acted 
on the theory of all the ruling classes of Europe, that the Union 
was permanently divided and no military force could reduce the 
Southern States, They recognized the belligerency of the South 
and sought to bring all the European governments to unite in the 
early recognition of her independence. With the exception of 
Kussia, they all desired that the two sections should never again 
come together — not for any preference for the South, nor froni 
jealousy of free institutions, but because of a dread of the consoli^ 
dated power of the United States, and the apprehension that if 



18 

unchecked, it must sooner or later dominate over one-fourtli of the 
globe, and wielding the resources of a continent with its hundreds 
of millions of people, must necessarily endanger all political sys- 
tems. Besides these considerations the material interests of Eng- 
land and France determined them to make common cause with 
the South. Much of their statesmanship had for years been di- 
rected to the production of cotton, in which so many millions of 
their people were interested ; and were the Southern States inde- 
pendent of the North, the most favorable commercial relations 
could be made with them. Besides the millions of their people en- 
gaged, more or less, in the cotton manufacture, large loans had 
been taken by English capitalists upon the cotton then in the ' 
South; and to protect all these interests, both England and France 
were considering late in the autumn of '61, whether it was not 
their duty to intervene in our struggle and raise the blockade. 
England, probably more anxious than France, delayed from def- 
erence to the anti-slavery sentiment of a large section of her peo- 
ple, for some plausible pretext, or until the cotton famine would 
unite them in support of the government. English and French 
fleets, larger than the entire American navy at that day, were in 
striking distance, prepared at any moment to raise the blockade 
and settle the whole question. 

SUCCESS OR IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION AND INVASION. 

Our representatives abroad warned the administration, that un- 
less some undeniable and unexpected military success was ob- 
tained before sjn-ing, England and France had both determined 
to raise the blockade, and take part with the South; that no 
victory, nor series of victories would change the European iiolicy ; 
that it must be a mortal wound upon the rebellion, to convince 
them that a war Avith the United States would be a more costly 
exjieriment, than to feed their suffering poor. 



19 



THE CALAMITY THAT WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED. 

It would he difficult to exaggerate the calamities which would 
environ the American peoj)le to-day had not the Mississippi ex- 
pedition been abandoned and the Tennessee camj)aign undertaken 
just at that time. 

It is absolutely certain that this Union with all its countless 
blessings Avould have beeu forever lost and our experiment of free 
government would have beeu held in mockery and derision by all 
other political powers of the world. 

IT DECIDED THE CONTEST. 

This campaign must therefore take rank with those feiv remark- 
able strategic movements in the world's history which have decided 
the fate of efhj^ires and nations. 

There have been female warriors who have led armies and given 
inspiration to conquering hosts, but there is not another instance 
where a woman, simply by the grasp and clearness of intellect, 
and the depth of her patriotism, and those instincts which charac- 
terize the refined and retiring woman, who has had the good for- 
tune of Miss Anna Ella Carroll to mark an epoch in her coun- 
try's civilization. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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